Now that’s settled, a pair of recent articles on the Fangraphs site are relevant to Padres fans’ interest, with an added bonus that you probably haven’t seen this stuff on mlbtraderumors already.

The first is a quick overview of the Padres farm system’s performance this year. Marc Hulet names Chase Headley, Matt Buschmann, Matt Antonelli, Cole Figueroa, and Eric Sogard as the graduate, the riser, the tumbler, the 2008 draft pick, and the sleeper, respectively. I’ve heard (and written) about the success of others in the system, but I haven’t seen much coverage of some of these guys. That’s a good, albeit anecdotal demonstration of the organizational depth we enjoy these days, especially in the lower levels.

Next, Dave Cameron checks in on the results of four major prospects for star player trades from the previous offseason. Go ahead, guess how they’ve turned out. Ready to be wrong? Here’s Dave:

Four big trades of all-star caliber players, and in every single case, the rebuilding team either held steady or got significantly better while the contender didn’t improve at all, and in some cases, got a lot worse.

Poor results for the team acquiring the star don’t necessarily mean there is a correlation between trading for stars and playing worse the next year. But to paraphrase Cameron, it pretty well confirms what some of us have been saying: one player cannot carry a team.

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Trevor Hoffman by SD Dirk

I know it isn’t going to sell newspapers or generate controversy, but I don’t think we’ll ever know exactly who is responsible if Trevor Hoffman is no longer a Padre. We have a lot of opinions thrown around as to why that may be, coupled with a heaping truckload of confirmation bias ready to jump at the chance to condemn whichever side of the argument we happen to usually approve of.

For the most vocal of fans and columnists, this generally means blaming the arrogant, ivy league nerds who run the team front office. As a matter of full disclosure, more often than not I give those arrogant, ivy league nerds the benefit of the doubt in their decisions.

Where I do find fault with the front office, and I think many will agree, is in their PR abilities. The dysfunctional relationship between Padres President Sandy Alderson and Billy Werndl plus Darren Smith, hosts of the radio show Alderson frequents creates a public relations nightmare. The result is less of an interview and more of a grilling designed to trap Alderson into saying what meets the obvious negative bias the hosts hold toward the team. Alderson often responds in kind with an insulting, arrogant tone which is seems directed towards the broadcasters, but gives a poor impression towards the fans. It does make for controversial, attention grabbing radio, so I guess the hosts win the battle. But I digress.

Only thinly veiled in the media coverage of an emotional event like the possible departure of Trevor Hoffman is a search for truth. Each side gives their version of events, and just as in other aspects of life, the reality often lies somewhere in between. My interpretation of the events goes like this:

Trevor’s Side

• Hoffman received a 1 year offer of $4 million and team option for 2010 with no buyout, about $3.5 million less than his salary last year, which he saw as an insincere PR move.
• The club refused to allow Hoffman and agent Rick Thurman to negotiate with Padres owner John Moores.
• Sandy Alderson may have animosity towards Thurman, perhaps because of Thurman’s agenting style, or perhaps for another reason.
• Hoffman deserves special treatment from Moores due to Trevor’s icon status.

Front Office Side

• The team received neither approval or disapproval of the contract offer one month after the offer was made. They also were willing to negotiate the price of the deal.
• Moores hired Alderson for the exact purpose of distancing himself from baseball decisions, the team found a meeting with the owner inappropriate.
• It is possible that Moores was willing to meet with Hoffman to discuss the direction of the team, but not for contract negotiations or with Hoffman’s agent present.
• Thurman went public with negotiation details after the club asked to keep them private.
• After about a month with the offer on the table, the team took it off.

To me, the fault for booting the situation could go either way. My question is, who are we to judge the culpability for Hoffman’s departure? We’re outsiders! Even the people with fancy press passes and radio shows, the sources of our information, are outsiders. All they do is talk to those actually involved, then usually form an opinion based on who slanted the story the best, or go with the side they intended to believe from the beginning.

For whatever reason, even if it’s his own fault, I will be deeply saddened if Trevor Hoffman isn’t a Padre for the rest of his career. Like many people reading this, I grew up with Trevor as part of my life.

And you know what? Writing with the caps lock key stuck with lots of exclamation points doesn’t make anyone more of a fan than me. Neither does asking ill informed questions or giving ill informed rants on radio shows. That stuff doesn’t demonstrate intensity. It characterizes an emotionally fragile person with messed up priorities.

I’ll miss Trevor. But lets not kid ourselves about who we are and what we know.

Photo

That’s what Jake Peavy and the Padres are doing.

As Mel pointed out, Peavy’s desires are all over the place. He wants to play on a contender, but he also wants to play on the Braves and Astros, and he wants to stay in San Diego. This we can easily chalk up to confusing. Break-ups are hard to go through. But then there are the comments his agent is making. Comments like:

“It’s a big decision,” said Axelrod, who noted a no-trade clause would have to be part of any trade. “You have to look at all the factors and moving parts. We’re usually pretty deliberate. … At times, (Peavy’s frustration) bubbled over. He’s a fiery competitor. You don’t want to take that out of him. You don’t want to tame that too much. But I heard Jake say it, I heard Brian (Giles) say it and I heard Trevor (Hoffman) say it —- they’re not that far away. I think if they kept (Mike) Cameron, (Geoff) Blum and (Doug) Brocail, they’re in it last year —- 84 games wins this division.”

Cooling off period for Peavy talks

Oof.

Much like the break-up of your friends, this has gotten ugly. Jake has always been one to tell Kevin Towers how to do his job/suggest better alternatives to his own teammates (like Kenny Lofton). I’m even surprised Jake’s agent didn’t throw Milton Bradley in everyone’s face. But those two aren’t done yet. They’re piling on:

“One of the things we will want to look at some point is, ‘Who are you giving up? How much are you weakening your team to make this deal?’” Axelrod said. “If Team X trades three starting pitchers and a starting shortstop to get Jake Peavy, that lessens their chance of being a successful team.”

Peavy throws a curveball into Padres’ trade talks with Braves

The specific player in question is Yunel Escobar, who is looking more and more like the centerpiece of a deal with Atlanta.

It was one thing when Jake told Towers what to do. But now he’s telling Frank Wren, the G.M. of the Braves (the team Jake is not on), how to do his job. What if Wren had a plan that didn’t involve Escobar? Jake’s all but gone from San Diego, but he’s also making it very difficult for the Padres to send him anywhere else.

It’s almost as if he’s playing a game of chicken with Towers. “Trade me for nothing or keep me. Your call.” The scary part is that Towers might actually blink.

My unofficial, probably not very accurate survey of defensive metrics puts Adrian as a good, but not best in the league first baseman. His offensive goodness and his success with the stupid fielding percentage stat probably helped attract attention as well.

Still though, cool news. No Yankees, you can’t have him for in exchange for a bag of baseballs. He’s ours, you spoiled clowns.

Maddux wins one too. No surprise there. How can he just keep being so good? The voters are screwed next with Maddux retired and no shoe in.

R. update: I hate to have to do this, but this was a bad call.

The Gold Gloves have long been a gag gift, highlighted by Palmeiro winning the award for first baseman in 1999 despite playing 28 games at the position.

Adrian was not the best defensive first baseman in the N.L. According to the Fielding Bible, he wasn’t in the top 10. Using their plus/minus system (which tracks the number of plays made more or less than the average fielder), the Fielding Bible ranked Mark Teixeira the best first baseman in baseball at +24. The best N.L. first baseman was Pujols at +20. Other National Leaguers in the top ten are Joey Votto (+19), Lance Berkman (+18), and Todd Helton (+6). Casey Kotchman’s in there too, so I guess he and Teixeira combine to make one National Leaguer. Either way, you’ll notice that a name’s missing from this list.

I love Adrian, but our principles are most important when they’re inconvenient, right?

I’m sorry.

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This Nick Canepa article is chock full of unintentional lulz. Here’s his contention:

I’m beyond tired of seeing San Diego stars either shipped off or simply allowed to walk away. In this regard, our history is horrible.

Essentially he says good players have played for San Diego sports teams. Then they played for teams in a different city. How inconceivable.

Next, Canepa gives us examples that apparently apply specifically to the possibility of trading Jake Peavy, even though his evidence come from different decades, ownership groups, payroll sizes, even  different sports.

Of course, he doesn’t mention that one could come up with a similar list of good players for any city across the country who have moved from one team to the next.

Don’t forget, this is supposed to be evidence for why the Padres should not trade Jake Peavy. Why trading him would be a bad idea. Here are my favorite parts.

Drew Brees, the Chargers’ Pro Bowl quarterback, left with very little compensation. Everyone knew Philip Rivers was going to be the guy, so the team should have traded Brees the year before, when he was healthy and at peak value.

The Chargers allowed running back Michael Turner to leave, and he’s not having a bad time in Atlanta, where he’s gained 655 yards in seven games. He should have been dealt after the 2006 season.

The Bolts seem poised not to re-sign linebacker Shawne Merriman when his contract expires after the 2009 season. If Merriman’s healthy, this would be a grievous error. He’s the NFL’s most dynamic defender. Let’s hope, at the very least, if the Chargers decide they’re not re-signing him, that they trade him, rather than cut him loose and get last week’s bagel in return.

The Padres should not trade a star like Jake Peavy because (somehow this makes sense) San Diego teams should have traded other stars.

There’s more:

The 2007 Cy Young winner makes a lot of money, he’s vocal, and the team lost 99 games with him. He has a violent delivery, and pitchers have been known to be brittle. But, while having a few problems, Peavy hasn’t had arm or shoulder surgery. And, at 27, he’s hardly out of his prime. He may not have entered it.

Those are some pretty good reasons to go through with a trade. The Padres lost 99 games with Jake on the roster, that goes to show how one player does not necessarily make a successful season. Also his violent delivery causes serious concern for injury, and pitchers are injured more often than position players.

But don’t worry! All of those reasons are completely negated because Jake is 27 years of age, and while he had injury trouble last year, surgery is not immediately required.

In reality, 27 year olds (Jake will be 28 most of 2009) can and do get injured.  And not needing surgery (yet) doesn’t alleviate concerns about a pitcher with elbow trouble. Finally, Canepa doesn’t bother to attempt a rebut to the argument that Peavy will likely take up 20% of the team’s payroll and still can’t do enough to save a 99 loss season.

Isn’t the generally accepted practice to provide evidence in support of your opinion, not against it?

Photo by Jim Epler

I don’t think Jake Peavy knows what he wants.

Here are his comments that kicked off this whole song and dance, as reported by the North County Times more than a month ago:

“I want to be here, but I want to be here with a chance to win a World Series,” Peavy said. “If someone says, ‘Hey, we’re going to rebuild, that’s not going to be our top priority’ you certainly would wonder what your other options are.”

There’s no way of knowing if the front office considered trading Jake before this, though my guess is they had. But once Jake made that statement the team called his bluff and announced the Padre ace may be available in a trade. Since Peavy controls his own destiny with a no-trade clause, he and his agent Barry Axelrod have been vocal about his desire of various things since then:

• Stay in San Diego
• Play for a team that isn’t rebuilding
• Pitch in the National League
• Play for the Dodgers, Astros, Braves, Cubs, Cardinals
• Gain complete no trade powers (His no trade powers decrease in 2011 and 2012)
• Make more money than his current contract provides

Some of these priorities are mutually exclusive, which makes me wonder about their order of importance. For instance, Jake says he wants to stay in San Diego but not necessarily if the team rebuilding. Jake must not be familiar with Pythagorean record, which uses runs scored and runs allowed to come up with a better model for wins and losses.

Because Houston’s expected record puts them at 77 wins and 84 losses this year. In other words, we would be more likely to see 77 wins from Houston than 86 wins if they play the season over. Yet Jake may prefer pitching for the Astros if the Padres dare play Venable and Headley next year.

Does he really expect the team to make a deal with so many restrictions? What the a;ldjfoisdf is going on here? It’s so hard to tell. I think Jake’s comments quoted above were just an emotional outburst to a losing season. Considering Peavy’s propensity to wear his heart on his sleeve, that scenario makes sense.

So if Jake really does want to stay, that makes it even harder on my emotions to admit the right deal* for him would be good for the team.

*Nothing less than one of Tommy Hanson or Jason Heyward in package form from Atlanta, for instance.

I do find it appropriate that you’re reading this post on a Padres website, and it is my favorite baseball article of all time, and only about 1/3 of the article actually relates to the Cubs, or baseball for that matter. No matter. Without further adieu, since there’s obviously no other news to talk about relating to the possible trade of a star player, or any type of important series happening right now, I submit to you “Did Steve Bartman Cost the Cubs the Series?” by Jay Pinkerton. I should warn you though, the article is juvenile, not safe for work (there’s swearing but no pictures), and very unfunny.

Here’s the requisite excerpt:

Let Bartman go. The Cubs not winning the World Series is hardly cause for alarm — they’ve been doing it successfully for decades without any help. The fact that someone in the audience decided to pitch in this year just means it was one less mistake for the Cubs themselves to make.

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The yellow line is the original fence. The blue, green, and sand lines represent a possible change. The most interesting proposed fence line looks to be the sand colored mark. It would create a new nook from the left of the Cox sign, jutting straight in towards home plate, then changing direction and moving across to cut out the rear porch recess.

To me, the green proposed choice looks the best. It cuts off the most field in the deepest part of the park, without going crazy in wierdness. I’m not a fan of those intentional nooks that have become popular in new ballparks. The “quirkyness” in them just seems so contrived. To me you can’t plan and execute that kind of charm, it has to come about for an actual reason.

Either way, it’s good to improve the absurd pitcher’s advantage of the ballpark. As Ray showed us, Petco isn’t just a normal run of the mill pitcher’s park, it’s one helluva pitcher’s park. It’s time things get a little more fair.

Room for a new Padres bullpen?

Even players one would think play decent defense are lower than expected. Brian Giles at 18 and Tadahito Iguchi at 29, for example.

The fan scouting reports are a great resource. I’m sure you’re aware of the inherent bias in making judgments only based on whatever we happen to remember of a given set of events. But what’s cool about this report is that these biases are on their way to being eliminated by aggregating the data between hundreds of fans, so no one idiot messes things up.

Though he is a smart guy, I wouldn’t rely exclusively on Tango’s collected data. Check out The Hardball Times’ revised zone rating and out of zone for a complimentary (and free!) view of a dude’s defense. Myron Logan over at Friar Forecast converted the Padres 2008 numbers into the easy to read +/- system as well.

Addendum: I should note that judging a player from his MLB rank prima facie might be a bit confusing at best and flat out wrong at worst. It definitely confused me since I’m throwing this in after the fact rather than including it in the original report.

The rank isn’t the Padres player compared to the league average at that position. The rank is out of all the players who saw just a few innings there (I don’t know for sure what the minimum is, but some guys have as few as 190 innings). For instance, there are 52 players included in the rankings of second baseman, including guys like Argenis Reyes. So don’t freak out too much.

There could be any number of reasons as to why Jake is on his way out, whether it’s his penchant for running his mouth or just simply reloading on talent. What is important, though, is what we could get for him. And to the best way to get an idea of what’s going to happen is to look at what already has.

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Looking at these trades, every team got one of the trading partner’s two best prospects, with all but the Brewers getting two of the top three in return. The Athletics really went above and beyond, taking half of Arizona’s top eight. When you consider that all four pitchers either required a contract immediately after joining their new teams, or will file for free agency in the case of CC Sabathia, the Padres hold a very advantageous hand controlling Jake Peavy for years.

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The team who jumped to the front of the pack, at least according to the internet, is Atlanta.

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Escobar, Hanson, Heyward, Johnson, Jurrjens, Schafer. Ideally, the Padres could get two of this group, and that’s before discussing the kind of deals St. Louis and the Dodgers (the Dodgers?!) could put together.

Caught up? Good. Because I want to talk about that last part.

I’m not going pretend that I’m fine trading Jake to the Dodgers. I’ve never really had beef with the team, I actually dislike Arizona more, but that doesn’t mean I want to help them. And when you consider that they just made the N.L.C.S. and Jake has a 3.27 E.R.A. at Dodger Stadium over the past three seasons, it sounds like a trade with LA could be likely. But I am fine with improving the Padres, and dealing with the Dodgers might do just that.

At the beginning of the season, Clayton Kershaw was consistently near the top 5 on most top prospect lists. In 220 innings pitched in the minors, he had an E.R.A. of 2.49 and followed it up with a 4.26 E.R.A. in Los Angeles with a K/9 of 8.4. At 20 years old, the youngest player in the league, that’s impressive. It’s not out of line to think that, if a Padre, Kershaw could give Chris Young (his fellow Highland Park HS [TX] alumni) a run for his ace status.

Then there’s Matt Kemp. Recently 24, Kemp has an O.P.S. of .816 in a little more than a thousand at-bats. More athletic than the current Padres team put together, Kemp has split time in his major league career between right and center field. Unlike the aforementioned Jason Heyward and Jordan Schafer, Kemp would absolutely enter the everyday lineup and hit near the top of the order.

Beyond those two mouthwatering big leaguers, there’s the Dodgers minor league system. Some other names to know are Scott Elbert, James McDonald and Ivan DeJesus.

But you want a wild card? How’s Russell Martin work for you? The Gold Glove/Silver Slugger winning catcher that is the more talented reincarnate of Eric Owens might be available. Of course, the Gold Glove award is a sham and Martin’s Slg. fell beneath .400 this season, not to mention his knees are probably 45 years old after catching 300+ games in two years. But he’s Russell Martin, dude! In a good year, he’s one of the top catchers in the league. And looking down the barrel of a Nick Hundley led battery of catchers, beggars can’t be choosers.

They are the Dodgers, but he is Clayton Kershaw and he is also the best pitching prospect in baseball. Which probably means that he’s not available. But we’ll have enough time to dwell on that later.

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